Game #79: Lee Lit Up as Sox Slam Tribe 11-4 in Rain Shortened Fiasco

The question now should not be IF the Indians are going to make a change at the manager spot – it’s WHEN. Tuesday night not even their Cy Young award winner from a season ago, Cliff Lee, could stop the bleeding of a losing streak that just keeps growing, as Lee allowed a season-high-tying 7 runs in three and a half innings as the Indians fell to the White Sox 11-4 in a rain shortened game.
The team has now dropped 12 of their last 14, and 7 of their last 8 at Progressive Field, which saw another sparse crowd of just 14,793, most of which left during the second rain dealy. The Tribe should really thank Mother Nature for ending this debacle, as there was a 32 minute waste of a dealy to start the game, a 30 minute dealy at about 8:45pm, and then the final dealy which was 57 minutes starting in the top of the 7th which in the end was the nail in the coffin.
You have to wonder just how many runs and hits the White Sox would have had off Indians pitching, as off of Lee, Mike Gosling and Matt Herges, Chicago put up 11 runs, 17 hits and pounded out three homers. They scored in every inning except the 2nd and then the 7th, when the rains hit again and the game was called.
The only thing the team has left to do is get rid of manager Eric Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro’s spot with the franchise should also be carefully looked at, as this team is in one of the ugliest tailspins we’ve seen for some time. Lee, their MVP from last year, was awful. He got pounded for 7 runs on 11 hits with one walk and three strikeouts.
The Indians offense was paced by Travis Hafner, who homered, and Asdrubal Cabrera, who hit a double to score three runs to make it a 9-4 game in the fifth. Hafner has hit in 9 of his last 12 games and has three homers and 9 RBI over that stretch.
The likely White Sox sweep will come Wednesday night at 7:05pm as Jeremy Sowers tries to follow up his solid previous Friday night outing vs the Reds.





Matt has covered Major League Baseball and the "other two" Pro teams in Cleveland since 1994. He has been on the beat of the Indians in full-time mode since 1996, working for various raido and print networks around the country.